Run
by more-than-words
Summary: Jenny runs in space, but she wants to run in time as well. The Doctor runs when and where he wants, but it doesn't stop his loneliness. Then their paths cross unexpectedly, and they find themselves working together to save a civilisation. S4 spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it.

**Spoilers: **Obvious spoilers for 4X06, general for the rest of S4 (including the finale but nothing specific).

**A/N:** This is fic is finished apart from a bit of editing, so hopefully it will be updated every other day. I'm a bit nervous about posting it, so please let me know what you think!! Enjoy :)

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The room is sparsely furnished to say the least. A bed, a chair, a table. The table and chair are made out of wood, and both are chained to the floor. The bed frame appears to be some sort of welded metal, and the white sheets covering the mattress look more flimsy than a butterfly wing. The single window is too high for her to reach without being able to move the chair, and what little light it lets in is dimmed by the thick, black, wrought-iron bars crossing it at regular intervals. The door is made of sturdy metal, and locks from the outside. The hinges are on the other side, too, so no hope there. No cameras though, which is good. It wouldn't do for the men who caught her to catch her on their cameras tearing apart their jail cell and trying to escape. She learned that one the hard way.

She thinks that her best bet for escape probably lies in the bed frame: if she could somehow dismantle it then she might be able to flatten out one of the tubular legs and get to work on finding a weakness in the door frame by using it as a lever. Failing that, she could use the metal pipe to hit the next person who comes into the cell, and then tie them up with the bed covers before making a run for it. She really hopes it won't come to that.

Sighing in temporary defeat, Jenny sinks down heavily on the bed. It creaks noisily under her weight, swinging a little to one side as she shifts to get as comfortable as she can on a mattress that can't be more than two centimetres thick. She can feel the springs that support her weight, and hopes that she won't be here long enough to need to sleep. She doesn't fancy adding chronic backache to her already fairly lengthy list of problems.

She scuffs the toes of her shoes against the flagstone floor, hands gripping the edge of the bed until her knuckles turn white with the strain. She feels terribly confined in here – constricted, as though time and space and oxygen are limited, even though she's never been claustrophobic before. She blames the feeling on the rapid nature with which everything went so wrong when she had been having such a lovely time only a few short hours ago. That, and the fact that she has been feeling increasingly lonely inside her head ever since she ran away from Messaline, a space in her mind that feels as though it ought to be filled with something though she isn't entirely sure what.

And now she's stuck, alone in a cell, unable to help any of the people that had been in trouble when she was unceremoniously hauled away. She isn't even sure if she can help herself.

_I've got to get out of here,_ she tells herself firmly. She feels a strange compulsion to right the wrongs that have been taking place on this planet, no matter what the cost, and she knows that the people have no other hope but her.

Jenny takes a moment for a few deep, calming breaths to try and soothe her racing mind and hearts pounding frantically in her chest. She knows it will do her no good to be so worked up she's shaking and unable to do what needs to be done to save the planet. Its infrastructure is collapsing and she has precious little time to stop the release of a virus that will kill the entire population, and it really won't help if she ends up shivering in a corner trying to get a handle on her rather easily distracted, mind-of-its-own mind. Ooh, when did she start rambling so much? She isn't sure.

Course of action decided, she opens her eyes and drops to her knees beside the bed. She studies the construction of the frame: the legs are bolted and welded to the main part of the frame, but the construction looks pretty flimsy. She's sure she can get it apart if she tries. Reaching up, she tears a strip of fabric from one of the sheets. It rips easily. She then wraps it around one of the bolts, gripping as hard as she can and twisting it violently. The force of the action flings her hand upwards into the metal frame. It clangs off her watch (she likes being able to see time – it makes it easier to bear when she can feel it moving around her in ways she hasn't yet learned to understand) and she muffles a cry as her fingers throb from the collision.

Deciding that a softly-softly approach may be more effective, if only to minimise personal injury and avoid alerting her captors to her intent, she ignores the pain in her hand and grips the fabric-covered bolt once again, this time pushing her weight behind it and using that to try and twist it out of its anchor. It doesn't work, but it does loosen some. She decides that she'll have to get herself a device that can do this sort of thing for her more easily. Sighing, Jenny rests for a minute, trying to ignore the growing pressure behind her forehead. The room feels smaller than it should, and she's cold and scared and could really do with a good cry right about now.

But she has no time. Pushing all thoughts other than dismantling the bed out of her mind, she takes a deep breath, and tries again.

-8-8-8-

The Doctor straightens his tie, pulls down the sleeves of his jacket, and then steps out of the TARDIS into warm sunshine. He locks the door behind him and then turns, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. The landscape surrounding him makes him pause a moment; this wasn't what he had been expecting. He'd been expecting concrete and metal and lots of beige and brown and grey, not… not green and blue and grass and sky. This wasn't part of his plan.

His plan had been so simple. Step one: find the galactic coordinates of the distress signal the TARDIS had picked up when he'd been drinking tea, the sudden beep from the console causing him to spill milky free radicals and tannin all over his shirt. Step two: set the coordinates (and change shirt). Step three: end up on a predictably devastated planet indistinguishable from all the others he's been to this week, find the source of the distress signal, save/help it, back in time for tea. Lush green grass and flowers weren't part of the plan.

He decides not to let the unexpected prettiness throw a spanner in the works - partly because he thinks it's rather nice to have a change of scenery, and partly because throwing a spanner in the works is always really rather impractical. Causes all sorts of problems, problems that aren't even necessary. Ooh, but he does like a good problem. Bit of a riddle, something to reason out.

No, that's not why he's here. Distress signal. Right.

He clicks on the sonic screwdriver, smiling as it lights up in his hand. He's close to whatever it is he's here to find. Very close. Pretty much right on top of it, in fact.

The smile drops off his face. That can't be right, surely. There's nothing around apart from him and the TARDIS and so much nature, certainly nothing that could be emitting a distress signal powerful enough to alert the attention of his magnificent ship. He wonders briefly if it's perhaps nothing more than a transdimensional blip, before deciding that the TARDIS would not have alerted him to that. Blips happened all the time. Full volume beeping from the console didn't.

The Doctor begins to wander, both in body and mind as he looks around for a Likely Suspect. He can still smell the tea he spilt, can still taste the remnants of it on his tongue, and his teeth feel a bit fuzzy because he let it brew for too long before drinking. It's only when he feels the muscles in his legs begin to pull that he realises he has crested a hill, and it's only when he looks up from the blue glow of the sonic screwdriver that he realises what is now in front of him.

The landscape in front of him is different to that behind him. In front of him there is a fence, and then beyond the fence the grass disappears to be replaced by dirt and rubble leading down a slope, and the blue sky fades into roiling grey clouds that must be full of dust and pollution. In front of him are his concrete and metal and beige and brown and grey. He refuses to let himself dwell on the state of his nature as he uses the sonic screwdriver to cut through the unattended chain link fence and thinks to himself, _now this is more like it._ He crosses over to the other side.

-8-8-8-

The room is immaculate. She has straightened the chair and the desk and the edge of the bed sheets hang parallel to the floor. There is no evidence of her tampering, apart from a few scratches on the door where she tried to lever it open (and failed).

Jenny sits on the floor opposite the bed, the door to her left. She is watching it carefully while trying to give the impression of being nonchalant. She feels that time has slowed down around her, but inside, she's racing. She can feel the rush of blood in her veins, and if she closes her eyes she can almost see the neurons firing in her brain and sense the ebb and flow of the universe. She wonders sometimes if she may be crazy. No one else she's met in her short life has any idea of what she's talking about when she's suddenly overtaken by a wave of nausea because time has changed suddenly, irrevocably, or the way her head hurts when she's caught up in the middle of something that's wrong, so _wrong_, and she doesn't have any idea of how to fix it because no one ever showed her how.

There's a whole universe worth of running out there for her to explore, and still it feels limited to her. She wants to be able to run in time as well. She loves the running, wants to run as far and wide as possible, doesn't understand why most people don't. She doesn't understand why she's different to everyone else, but the one person she could ask about it thinks she's dead, gone, didn't even really want her in the first place. She wishes that he had wanted her, that she could have gone with him and his friends. She could have asked him why her head feels so empty when it's full of so much knowledge.

A clanging sound comes from somewhere outside her cell, further down the corridor but it's coming closer quickly. A man, she thinks. A large man walking with heavy boots on. Heavy boots with laces that can be tied together so he'll trip over if he tries to chase her. He'll probably have a weapon, she thinks. A knife or a truncheon or both, because he thinks she's dangerous. She'll have to act carefully, quickly. She lays both palms flat on the floor, bracing herself.

The man stops outside her door and she hears him breathing heavily and rattling keys. Then a key slides into the lock, metal on metal. She hears the tumblers turn, can picture what they look like in her head based on how they fall. Then the key is pulled back and the door is being pulled open and light streams into the small room, creating a silhouette in the doorframe. Jenny is sitting in the shadows, and she takes advantage of her position.

She waits until the man steps into the cell and turns slightly to close the door behind him before she makes her move. He obviously thinks he's keeping her in by shutting the door; it makes her want to laugh. She lunges forward and pulls the metal bed leg out from its loose anchor, jumping to her feet as she does so and in one fluid movement swings her arm out to hit the man in the side with her weapon. The tray of food he had been carrying is flung to the bed as he doubles over. She makes the most of the upper hand and the element of surprise, grabbing onto the man's arm while kicking his feet out from under him.

He falls to the ground with a soft thud before he even knows what's hit him, and she's busy gagging him with a bed sheet by the time he thinks to shout out, his yell muffled by the linen and thick walls of the cell. He kicks out at her as she binds his arms with another sheet, ready torn into strips for just this purpose. When she'd failed to get the door open earlier she decided that she ought to be prepared. Arms bound, and then comes her favourite part of the plan. The man is face down and she sits on his legs while she reaches down and unties his shoe laces before tying them up together.

She stands and then with some difficulty lifts one side of the table, rearranging it so that one of the wooden legs is placed between the man's own. She hopes it will buy her some time. She is more than aware that her solution is temporary, and decides that she will have to learn some new jailbreaking techniques. Maybe when she gets a device to open doors and make mundane tasks easier, she could add a stun setting. That might work.

Once the man is restrained as well as she can manage, she reaches down and searches through his clothes, finding a small truncheon but no other weapon. She takes it just in case, as well as stealing his keys, before walking over to the door.

The door is open and she's just about to walk through it before she thinks to stop and turn back, looking at the man with regret. "I'm sorry," she says, meaning it, and remorse fills up inside her. It's a sign, she thinks, that she is definitely a product of pacifist stock. She hates violence now.

All the same, she leaves the man where he is, knowing that there are more important things right now. She has to stop the people he works for releasing the virus that would kill a billion innocent people, and make sure they can't do it again. Then she can come back and make sure the man is okay.

With one last look behind her, Jenny leaves the cell, locking the door as she goes.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thanks for all your lovely reviews so far :)

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Jenny can't find a way out, and she is beginning to suspect that there isn't one.

Well, that isn't strictly true. She found the exit, but it was heavily guarded by men with truncheons and she knew there would be no way she could take all of them on and win, despite her feminine wiles. And so she has spent the past seven minutes skulking through corridors searching for the back door, seeing as the front one is clearly out of bounds to her.

She is hardly daring to breathe for fear of being caught and thrown back in her cell, and she knows that it is only a matter of minutes – mere moments, probably – until the soldier she locked up in her place is found. And then they'll be hunting for her, and right now she has nowhere to run.

Part of her contemplates letting them capture her again. That way maybe she could keep them talking, get some information out of them. But that would mean having to escape _again_, and she knows that would be next to impossible seeing as she's already done it once. They'd be watching her more closely in case she tried a second time. So recapture is not an option.

She comes to the end of the corridor she has been walking down. Her only option now is to turn right, unless she wants to go back the way she came (which she doesn't). She rounds the corner, moving quietly in case it is guarded by more soldiers. She breathes a sigh of relief as soon as it is obvious that the way is clear. Most of the soldiers are off in the fight, she supposes.

There is another long corridor in front of her, and at the end of it is a door. A door with a window. A very dusty window with bars across it, but a window nonetheless. Jenny walks quickly to the door, keeping an ear open in case anyone tries to creep up behind her. Standing on tiptoes, she can just about see through the window. Whatever is on the other side is dark and appears to be deserted. _Good_. After one last check behind her to make sure she is alone, she pulls down on the handle and the door swings open.

_Guess they didn't feel the need for locks around here,_ she thinks to herself as she shuts the door behind her. She feels somewhat privileged that the soldiers felt it necessary to lock her up when the rest of their prison is so lacking in security. They must have decided her to be dangerous. The thought makes her giggle for a moment before she catches herself and stops. She doesn't want people to think she's dangerous. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, and it hurts her that people might think that she would. Just because she was born a soldier doesn't mean that she is one now. She only wants to help.

She needs to stop the virus. But how?

Jenny takes a moment to lean back against the door, collecting herself. It's at times like this - when she's struggling to know what to do even though she knows she must be close - that she feels most alone. The space in her mind hurts her. She knows that it needs to be filled with encouragement and support, but she has nowhere to get it from. It's all up to her. It makes her tired, all this responsibility. She's tired now. She hasn't slept properly in weeks (or months, depending on which calendar she chooses to go by), and it's beginning to catch up with her. She isn't sure how much she is supposed to sleep, but she guesses it's more than she does. She wishes she didn't have to do it at all.

When she sleeps, she dreams.

Pushing all thoughts of fatigue and loneliness to the back of her mind, she takes in her new surroundings and then wonders how she could have wasted even a few seconds lost in self-pity, because suddenly the answer she has been searching for is staring her in the face. In front of her are two dark corridors, both signposted although the signs are dusty and faded, almost impossible to read. But she has good eyesight, and so can decipher the words without a problem. The one to the right says 'Storage and Exit' The one to the left says 'Scientific Research.' It takes her less than a second to pick one. Naturally, she goes left.

-8-8-8-

The Doctor is puzzled. He cannot work out why a fence should have such an impact on the immediate environment. One side green, the other side brownish. One side blue sky, the other side grey sky. He knows that logically the fence will have nothing to do with it – it's clearly nothing more than a dividing line between two very different sides of the same place – but he can't help but think that something is strange.

Something must be affecting the atmosphere – or rather, _not_ affecting the atmosphere in one place but having a huge impact on it in another. His sonic screwdriver readings are a bit wobbly, and he cannot be certain what's going on. One thing he can be certain of, however, is that he has found a door.

Set back into the side of the slope he has just come down, there is what appears to be a buried bunker, with only the 'Keep Out: Emergency Exit' sign to identify it as anything other than a bumpy bit of hill with a small drop below. The Doctor looks around him: there's no one about, and he finds that odd. He can hear people nearby, can hear shouting and noises that sound scarily like fighting, but as far as he can see, he is alone.

The distress signal that bought him here is weaker than it was on the other side of the fence, and now he has come to a conclusion. Well, not really a conclusion, more like a theory of sorts. Not even a theory; it resembles more accurately a vague hypothesis that he's hoping will be true. He's pretty certain that it might be. Definitely maybe, at least. He thinks that the door in the hill leads to a secret underground base of some sort, which leads to the further hypothesis that the aforementioned secret underground base will be where he locates the source of the mysterious distress signal. Excellent. He's sure he could draw more hypotheses and theories from that, but he has already wasted enough time babbling away inside his head – and _how_ he prefers it when he has someone with him to babble to out loud because it's just not the same when he's on his own in his head (it's too lonely) – and he needs to press on.

Keeping an eye out for intruders and cameras – he hates bloody cameras, always catching him unawares – he walks the short distance to the door and then stops in front of it, studying its construction. It's made out of iron, and looks pretty study. A single rap of his knuckles on its surface tells him that it's at least two inches thick, and a cursory glance shows that the hinges are on the inside. _Why,_ he thinks,_ are the hinges always on the wrong side?_

He feels a hint of amusement in his mind, a fleeting brush that lifts him slightly, and he finds it strange. He was being deadly serious about the hinges; the amusement didn't come from him. He wonders if maybe the creature in distress is telepathic, if it can feel him. He decides that must be it: there is no other plausible explanation.

Right, then. Telepathic creature (creatures?) in distress. _I'm coming,_ he thinks as hard as he can, willing whatever it is to hear him. _I'm coming to get you_. He doesn't foresee it taking long; the door in front of him is hardly cutting edge technology. Nothing the sonic screwdriver can't handle.

Except… Apparently the sonic screwdriver can't handle it. He holds the device against the lock, hears it click as the tumblers fall back and then reaches out to push the door open but… nothing happens. The door rattles slightly and shifts a bit, as though it is jammed on something. The Doctor puts his shoulder into it, shoves hard against it – hard enough, he's sure, to leave a bruise even on his tough old Time Lord skin – only to end up with a dull pain in his arm from too much resistance and not enough give in the construction. He tries again, this time putting his weight behind his hip, only to end up with the same result as before. "Ouch," he mutters to himself, rubbing at the new sore spot on his body and glaring at the offending door.

He tries the sonic screwdriver again to no avail before using it to try and unbolt the hinges from the wrong side of the door. His frustration is growing exponentially with his failure to open a single bloody door – not even any electronics to disengage and it still won't open! – when he feels another brush in his mind. This time he feels relief coupled with anticipation, and it makes his skin tingle. _What __**is**__ it?_ The presence feels familiar but new at the same time, as though it somehow fits with him. He wonders if whatever it is he is here to help is some distant relation of the TARDIS. That could explain the familiarity, as well as the newness and youth and excitement he senses with it. _That must be it,_ he tells himself firmly. _There's nothing else._

A sound comes from somewhere on the other side of the door. Footsteps, he thinks, light-sounding footsteps coming closer. Confident footsteps. It must be someone who knows what they're doing. They sound like they have a purpose. But then suddenly they stumble. He hears a scuffle come from behind the door and then the sound of a small body hitting a wall and sliding down it. The feeling in his mind becomes stronger; whatever is trying to connect with him is overwhelmed, struggling. He hears a small whimper from through the door – female, he decides, definitely female – and not wanting to take a chance, he calls, "Hello? Are you all right?"

The presence in his mind stills as though in shock and so does the person behind the door. _Are they one and the same?_ he wonders, feeling his hearts quicken in his chest at the prospect. Are they hurt? _What and who are they?_ "Can you open the door for me? I can help."

There is panic inside his head, panic and surprise and a tiny spark of hope, glimmering away brightly in the background. There is more shuffling on the other side of the iron barrier, and the sound of something being lifted away from the door. Then it is being opened, pulled backwards into a corridor. The light streams in, creating shadows at the edges.

The Doctor looks down and finds the source of the new presence in his mind. Time stills around him.

-8-8-8-

She appears to be in a tunnel of sorts. There is little natural light, only just enough to see by so that she doesn't stumble as she walks. Jenny has the distinct feeling that she is walking away from the light rather than towards it, but that doesn't matter. She knows she's going in the right direction; she can feel the tingling in her mind that always occurs when things begin to fall into place. It's yet another thing she doesn't understand about herself, and now the feeling is stronger than ever. It's threatening to burst out of the confines of her mind and go zipping all around her body, this strange sense of effervescing completeness although she has doesn't think she has ever been quite so alone.

She wonders why other people don't feel it, or why they can't sense time the way she can, or why they are perfectly content to stay in one place their whole lives when the entire _universe_ feels constricted to her. _Maybe,_ she thinks with a wry smile,_ I'm just the most advanced being in creation. Nothing can top me._ The thought amuses her, the idea that she could be so important – she who was made in a machine from genetic material procured from a reluctant man who denied he was a soldier but clearly was. She keeps on walking – slowly, so as to be sure not to miss anything.

The tunnel is damp, and smells slightly earthy. She thinks that she might be underground; the floor she is walking on is made of compacted dirt and the walls are too soft to be stone. A secret underground base, she reckons. _Like Messaline_.

She loses herself for a moment in thoughts of the planet where she was born and died all in the same day. The planet where she was saved, and where she met her father and lost him before she ever really had him.

Her lapse of attention causes her to trip over her own feet as the floor turns into a gentle downward slope and she feels herself falling. Bracing herself, she manages to catch herself before she hits the ground, instead stumbling hard into the opposite wall. She feels relieved, glad that she didn't fall. Every time she falls it reminds her that she has no one there to catch her, and that no matter how much fun she may have running from planet to planet, one day she might fall never to get back up again because there is nobody to help her.

The tingling sensation makes itself known in her mind again, but this time it is different. Usually it occurs as a little tickle towards the back of her skull, the kind of sensation that sends a shiver down her spine but nothing more. Now, it is threatening to fill her head, pouring into her and she wonders just how important this virus she is hunting is. She decides that the feeling in her head must be stronger now because if she doesn't stop this virus, the consequences will be huger than anything she has yet encountered in her short but action-packed life. She thinks that she's really going to need some simple, heated action after this adventure is over. Some traditional but classic running for her life while being chased by a herd of angry aliens back to her spaceship. That's what she needs. Definitely. And a shower.

She stops herself before she can ramble on any further, anticipation growing inside her at the prospect of righting a terrible wrong and the pre-emptive satisfaction of a tangled timeline snapping itself back into place inside the web of her thoroughly complex mind.

And there, just up ahead, there's a door. Two doors, to be precise. One straight ahead that is letting in little slivers of light and must lead outside, and one to the left, about ten metres away from her. Something tells her that is the one that she wants.

She strides forwards confidently, the floor beneath her boots now lined with wood instead of dirt. The sound echoes loudly. She's six metres away… five…

Pain suddenly explodes in her head and she comes to an abrupt halt, pressing one hand to her temple in a bid to alleviate the sharp stabbing sensation. It feels as though it is coming from inside her mind, from inside the deep, lonely places, as though they are angry she has been trying to ignore them and are reminding her of their existence.

The feeling threatens to overwhelm her, even as the pain eases off slightly and lessens to a dull throb. She stumbles forwards, hand still pressed to her head. Jenny hits the wall, letting it hold her as she slides down to the ground, her breathing laboured. She can feel confusion in her mind but she knows that it can't possibly be her own. She knows what she's doing, she has a purpose, so why is there confusion? Is something wrong with her? What's wrong with her head?

She can barely cope with the plethora of feeling inside her mind and it _hurts_. It hurts more than the feeling of emptiness she has mostly become accustomed to. This is the feeling of so much suffering, none of it hers and yet it somehow is because it's somehow the same as her but she doesn't know why and she doesn't understand and she wishes it would stop… "Oh," she whimpers, although she would much rather scream. She just can't find the energy.

And then there is a voice – a man's voice – cutting through the fog in her mind, calling to her from the other side of the door, saying, "Hello? Are you all right?"

_What?_ She knows that voice. She'd know it anywhere despite having not heard it other than in her own head since her first day of life. She knows it. She knows _him_. But it can't be. Can it? Can it really be him? She wonders if maybe she's imagining things, imagining his voice because it soothes her despite the fact she hardly knew him. Imagining him because really, when all is said and done, she's just a lost little girl who wants her daddy.

"Can you open the door for me? I can help."

It's definitely him. He sounds concerned. He's worried about her and he doesn't even know it's her! Jenny feels panic build up inside her as for a moment she struggles to pull herself out of the overwhelming heaviness inside her head, before quashing it down and heaving herself along the last little stretch of the tunnel to the door that separates her from the man that made her.

What if it's not him? What if she's hallucinating? What if something else is doing things to her mind? _No_, she tells herself. _Not hallucinating. I don't hallucinate, not even after six shots of hypervodka._ _It's him_.

A little spark of hope flares inside of her and is quickly stoked to become a slow burn as she pulls herself upwards, grabbing at the iron bar that blocks the door and pulling it away with a strength that surprises her. She places it carefully on the ground, not sure her throbbing head can take any more jostling just now. Then she grasps the door handle and pulls it open before collapsing back to lean against the wall, her legs sprawled out in front of her. Her hearts are pounding harder than they ever have before.

She looks up as he comes into view in the doorframe. His eyes lock onto her and he stands and stares. Time stills, and there is silence.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Thanks for all the support so far! This is Chapter 3 of 6.

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He's gone mad, he's sure of it. It can't be real – _she_ can't be real. She died, she's dead. She can't be there, sitting in front of him and looking up at him with big eyes filled with a pain he has only ever seen before in himself. She's _not _there. She's _not_.

But then she speaks, sucking a breath into her lungs as though it is a great effort, her head lolling slightly as though it is too heavy for her to hold it up any longer. "Help," she says weakly, sounding like a child.

And he cannot deny her. He can't. She's right there, despite logic telling him that she can't be. She's really there and she's looking at him and she's hurting like him. And she needs his help. He pushes everything out of his mind but her, stepping inside the bunker and taking a moment to shut the door behind him, lending them some privacy. It's dim in here, but that doesn't matter. He can see plenty well to be able to see his daughter. _Daughter._ The word hurts as it makes itself known in his mind, the fact that she is his child and he has failed her, in every way possible.

The Doctor kneels down beside Jenny, reaching out to gently move her hand away from where it pressed tight against her temple. "It's okay," he murmurs, surprising himself with the tenderness of his tone. "It's all okay now."

He knows now that the new presence in his mind came from her, that she has been broadcasting, her mind seeking his without him having the faintest idea it was her because this situation is just so impossible. It's impossible, but that's something that can be dealt with later. Nothing else matters now.

"My head," she says and instantly his hand is resting against her cheek, fingers smoothing hair away from her temple in an effort to soothe her.

"I know," he replies, guilt crashing through him. It can only be him that's done this to her, no matter how unknowingly. He can cope with her presence in his mind: his years of training and development coupled with her newness and limited wealth of experiences mean that she slots nicely into the space that the death of his people created. But he is too much for her to handle. If he'd only known it was her, he would have shielded his mind, protected her. He hasn't had to do that in so long; he's been alone for a long time. He never thought he'd have to worry about her still-developing mind being able to cope with his overwhelming presence. Not when he thought she was dead. "I'm sorry."

And she would be able to feel his pain, he knew. It would be that that's hurting her now. Hastily, he throws up barriers around his mind, leaving it just unguarded enough that she can feel his presence but not his intense emotions. He tries to calm her, brushing her mind with his, feeling her resulting surprise inside his own head that he can do something so precise with something as sprawling as his Time Lord consciousness. He feels her anguish begin to lessen, and her breathing becomes less laboured as his presence reassures her. He strokes her hair back from her forehead, her face looking tiny next to his large hand. He wants to protect her but he doesn't know how. He hasn't done this in so long.

"Hello Dad." She gives him a small, hesitant smile as his hand drops away from her face to rest against her arm.

He returns the smile just as unsurely. "Hello," he whispers.

"How've you been?" She struggles to sit up properly, letting him support her as she pushes herself upright.

He wants to laugh at the absurdity of this situation, this family reunion. On more than one occasion, he has indulged himself in wondering how this moment would possibly go, but never did he come up with this. He'd always pictured smoke clearing from a battleground and a figure appearing in front of him, walking out of the dust to give him the shock of his life. He never thought that he'd be so shocked he'd be stunned into long moments of silence. He never thought it would make him quite this happy just to see her lovely face again. He never even wanted her, and yet here he is, about to burst with joy at being reunited with his daughter despite the pain it causes in him, old memories making themselves new again. "Oh, you know," he says in response to her question. "Saving the universe, seeing the sights, running for my life. The usual. How about you?" He wants to ask her _how_, how she's here, how she's even alive. But this is not the time for that.

"Same," she replies. "Exploring planets, meeting people. _Lots_ of running." She smiles then, the first proper smile she's given him and it inspires a big cheesy grin to plaster itself across his face. "Love the running."

"Yes." A little laugh erupts from him as he says the word, and it occurs to him that he is nervous. All the other times he has imagined this moment, he has never had to deal with the consequences of its actuality. But now he does, and he is unsure of what to do. He doesn't really know anything about her or her life, whether she's really happy or if she's learned how to put on a front like he so often does. He finds that he wants to know everything.

She catches his eye. "That was you in my head, wasn't it?"

He nods guiltily. "Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you, I didn't mean to hurt you. Jenny, I thought you were…"

"Dead?" She says the word lightly – too lightly – as though the idea means little to her. He hates her flippancy even though he has been guilty of being careless with his own life on more than one occasion.

He nods again. "I saw you die," he says quietly. "I _saw_ it." He can't help the accusing tone that creeps into his voice, as though daring her to challenge the fact of her death.

"I did die," she agrees. "But then I lived." She looks at him hopefully, and it occurs to him then that she is terrified, scared that he doesn't want her, that he's going to deny her and leave her.

"Yes, you did," he says emphatically, willing her with his mind to feel how glad he is that she's here with him despite the absurdity of its happening. He reaches for her at the same moment she lifts her arms up for a hug. His arms wrap around her slightly awkwardly, their position on the floor not really providing the best of angles, but that doesn't matter. He holds her tight, his eyes squeezing shut in disbelief as he feels her against him, her arms around his neck. He can feel her smile against his shoulder. He wants to run. He wants to run with her, anywhere and everywhere, the two of them rushing through time and space, drinking it all in. He wants to show her everything, teach her everything.

"I need to ask you some questions," she says matter-of-factly, pulling away from him. "I need to know some things about… about me, and you. About us. You know."

He knows what she means. She means Time Lords. She wants to know why she's different to everyone else. Of course she does. There will have been no one to explain to her about the timey-wimey nature of the universe or how to deal with the things that happen inside her mind, because there is no one in the universe who could teach her about those things apart from him. And he thought she was dead. She's been all alone, just like him, and that thought makes him ache. "Of course," he tells her sincerely. "Anything."

Jenny nods, apparently satisfied with his reply. "But not now," she says. "There are more important things to do first. We need to stop the virus."

Ooh, that caught his attention. "Virus? What virus?"

"The one that's going to be released and kill the whole population of the planet if we don't stop it soon."

_We._ She said 'we.' He likes that. "Sounds like you've already got the lay of the land."

"Oh, you know," she says breezily. "The land, the people, their jails."

"Jails?"

She smiles wryly. "Like father, like daughter."

He has to smile at that, even though he hates the thought of her locked up in jail for trying to help (not that it hasn't happened to him a good few thousand or so times, but still…). "Oh, hang on," he says, remembering the thing that brought him here in the first place. "There was a distress signal. The TARDIS picked it up."

"The TARDIS?"

"My ship." He realises that she doesn't know about the TARDIS, that she wasn't around long enough to hear about it the last time they were together. "Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."

She stares at him, excitement flaring from her mind to his. "It's a time machine?"

He grins and nods, thinking that he's never seen anyone quite so excited. Pride wells up inside him. "Yep! And she picked up a distress signal, which is why I came here in the first place. Hold on." He gets out his sonic screwdriver, clicking it on. A few moments of observation and he has his answer. "Found it! We're close."

"But shouldn't we find the virus first and then find whoever is in distress? They'll die anyway if we don't stop the virus."

He thinks about that for a moment. "Maybe," he says, hoping he sounds intelligent and mysterious, "they're the same thing."

She jumps up from her position on the floor, brushing the dust from her trousers before looking down at him with her hands on her hips and a stern look on her face. "Are you trying to show off?"

The Doctor tries to look innocent. "No?"

She keeps the glare up for another few seconds, just long enough for him to start wondering if she is actually annoyed with him for some reason, but then she relaxes her stance and gives him an expectant look. "Well, are you coming?"

Oh, he most definitely is.

-8-8-8-

Jenny's mind is reeling. She's trying to come to terms with the fact that the man she had so recently been thinking of as lost to her is standing right in front of her, looking at her with a kind of scared fondness. To learn that the unfamiliar sensations in her mind came from him is slightly baffling, as well as a little scary. What if he's reading her thoughts right now? She'd never know because she doesn't know how to access his mind in the way that he evidently can hers. She doesn't even know how to protect herself from intrusions into her mind. It's all so new to her.

She snaps out of her internal monologue to find her father watching her intently and then, as if he is reading her mind (and perhaps he has been) he says, "Jenny, I'd never invade your privacy. I'd never go into your mind without permission." And then, sounding slightly unsure of himself, he asks, "Do you believe me?"

"Yes," she says without hesitation and she finds that she actually means it, although she's still a little wary. As happy as she is to find this man, she can't help but remember how he rejected her on Messaline, belittled her as being not as good as him, despite them being essentially the same. He may have come around to the idea of her in the end, but she knows that he will have had time to reflect on things and it's entirely possible he's here only to help this planet and then he'll be off again in his TARDIS (she loves that word), leaving her alone to her travels.

And suddenly, she knows without a doubt that that's not what she wants. She wants to go with him. But she can't think about that now.

She brings her mind back to the present situation, and one look at him convinces her that he has been rambling inside his head just as she has. "So then," she says brightly. "We'd better be quick. I broke out of jail about twenty-five minutes ago, and they'll be looking for me by now. So we should get moving."

He nods silently, watching her. She thinks that he might be testing her, even if it is subconsciously, and it makes her feel vulnerable.

"Right," she continues, turning to face the second door. "Before you and your consciousness interrupted me, I was on my way here. I think it's where the virus is. Is this where you found your distress signal, too?"

"It must be," he replies. "I took the reading outside, but there was nothing around except grass and sky. It has to be below ground."

"So that's why you think the virus and whatever's in distress is one and the same?"

"There are a lot of ways to kill a lot of people, Jenny," he says cryptically, sounding as though he is speaking from experience. She decides that it's something she'll have to ask him about later – after.

She doesn't reply, instead reaching out to open the door, but finds that it's locked. She sighs in frustration. She thinks that she might be able to kick it down, but doesn't want to in case she hurts whatever it is that may or may not be inside (or in case he thinks that she's too violent and thinks twice about her). "I need to get a lock-picking device," she says.

The Doctor – _Dad_ – steps forward, holding up the tool he used to scan for the distress signal. "Oh, like this one?" he enquires casually. He steps to the side so that she can watch as he flicks through the settings of the small, silver, tube-like device. Finding the one he wants, he aims the tool at the lock and clicks it on. The end glows blue and there is a whirring from the tool followed by a clicking from the lock. He holds a finger to his lips, gesturing for her to be quiet. Then he steps in front of her, putting himself between her and the door. Part of her is pleasantly surprised at the idea of him placing himself between her and potential danger, but part of her wants to stamp her feet in frustration. Does he think that she can't protect herself if she needs to?

And then it dawns on her. He's fully aware that she can take care of herself – after all, she was made to be an independent and self-sufficient soldier – but he wants to protect her anyway. _How very 'dad' of him,_ she thinks.

"Okay," he murmurs after a moment. "Ready?"

She doesn't think before answering, "Always."

He opens the door and it swings open into a wide room. Lights flicker on inside automatically. A quick glance around his shoulder tells Jenny that it's deserted, and then she's pushing past his shoulder to get inside, jostling him as she does.

"Careful!" he says. "We have to make sure not to disturb anything. The room might not be as empty as it looks."

He's right. She can feel the tingling in her mind again as she steps more carefully into the space, taking in the sterile white of the ceiling, walls and floor. The room is lined with workbenches and shelves but there is nothing on them except for a clock placed on a desk directly opposite where she is standing. Wait, no, not a clock, she realises as she looks more closely. It's a timer. And it's counting down. "Dad," she says. "Look."

"I see it." He strides past her, sonic whatever-it-is clasped in one hand. He crouches down in front of the timer, watching the numbers tick by. "It's using old Earth time," he says. "Thirteen minutes left."

Jenny is mesmerised by the sight of seconds ticking away. She knows she's wasting time by standing and watching when she should be helping her dad work out what the timer is connected to or by searching the room for the virus, but she can't tear her eyes away. She has lost count of the number of hours she has spent staring at her watch, watching the seconds tick by as time moves around her. It gives order to things, she thinks, by being able to see time. She knows that her dad will probably think she's silly for wearing a watch, especially one that's only useful to a limited number of civilisations, but she loves to see time slipping by. She has all the time she could ever want, and it's beautiful. To be able to run in time like her father would be perfection.

Slight movement to her left catches her attention and she turns, snapping herself out of her semi-meditative trance and leaving her dad to attempt to disable the timer that will otherwise release the deadly virus. In a shadowed corner of the room is a cylindrical glass container stretching from floor to ceiling. The glass cylinder is glowing, and if she's not mistaken then it's also getting brighter, pulsing blue and golden light. She walks to it and then stops just in front of it, raising one hand to touch it but at the last moment thinks better of it. If this is the virus then she needs to be careful.

And then she feels something new in her mind, something skirting around the edges as though searching for a way in. It's not her dad though, she's pretty certain he'd tell her if it was him. So what is it? The light in the cylinder pulses again and it is then that she realises that it is made up of tiny little particles all suspended in air, and all glowing separately to make up a much brighter whole. They're beautiful. It makes her smile.

The feeling in her mind comes again, stronger this time, and she is suddenly awash with sadness. The billions of glowing particles seem to dim, and now she associates the sadness with them. They're calling to her.

"Dad, I think I've found your creatures in distress," she calls softly, not wanting to alarm the tiny beings locked behind the glass.

She can hear her dad standing and making his way over to her, but she's barely aware of him as he comes to stand beside her. All she knows is the sadness of these beautiful creatures, their anguish at being used as part of a deadly scheme. _Help us,_ they whisper inside her mind. _Help us_.

"We're going to stop this," she says, and the tone of her voice makes it obvious that failure is not an option.

The soldier in her is reawakening.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think! Chapter 4 should be up on Monday :)


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Thank you for all your kind words and encouragement so far!! I have to apologise for some slightly dodgy, RTD-style 'skience' that occurs in this chapter, but hopefully it won't detract from the story! Enjoy :)

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The silence in the room is so thick that it feels as though she has cotton wool in her ears. It's cloying, this absence of sound. It's twisting itself around her until all she can think of is righting the wrongs that have been committed no matter what she has to do to do it.

Her gaze is locked on the light pulsing within the glass cylinder when she says to her dad, "They're the virus aren't they." It's not a question. "Those creatures. It's why they're locked away."

"Yes," he says with just as much steel in his voice. "They're being held captive because they have the power to kill. And they _will_ kill if we don't stop this."

"Don't worry, Dad. We're going to stop it."

They turn to look at each other in the same moment, and they are perfectly in tune, acting instinctively, chasing what's right. They're both soldiers, but right now she can't bring herself to care. Not when he nods once, sharply, and says, "Yes, we are. This ends now." This is how it's meant to be. The two of them, doing what needs to be done to preserve the integrity of reality by whatever means necessary.

"We have to rescue them before they're released," she says even though she knows he already knows this. How can he not know? "How?"

He doesn't reply, and she takes his silence to mean that he doesn't know. The silence threatens to engulf her. She can't stand silence. She's had too much of it in her life. Fear of silence is why she throws herself into so much action despite the possibility of danger, and it's why she loves dancing and music, and celebrations. She doesn't like silence. It makes her sad, and sadness reminds her of all the things she doesn't have.

The miniscule creatures dance around the edges of her mind but go no further, and she's grateful for that. Her mind is precious to her. She's scared that if anyone other than her dad were to see inside her head they'd be terrified of her. They wouldn't understand her, just like she doesn't understand herself. But she can understand certain aspects of herself and know why certain aspects of her personality are the way they are. Like the way she knows that her single-mindedness comes from her original purpose as a solider, but her compassion and abhorrence of violence comes from her dad. Jenny is all too aware of the fact that she is a very complex creation.

The beings enclosed in glass are almost the exact opposite. They're simple things – they have to be, she guesses, because they're too small to fit too many complexities. But they are intense. She aches with them.

"They're called Lydra," her dad says. "They usually live on otherwise uninhabited worlds, billions and billions of them all bound together by energy and light. Great clouds of them drift across landscapes, floating aimlessly. They're peaceful creatures, and they don't do any harm to anyone as long as they're left alone."

There is anger in his tone and it frightens her a little. "But what if they're interfered with?" she asks, her gaze fixed on the Lydra. She smiles at them in the hope that they will be reassured even though she highly doubts they can see her. Hopefully they will be able to pick up on the sentiment instead.

He doesn't answer for long moments, instead striding back to the timer and fiddling with the wires attached to the back. "They're deadly, Jenny," he tells her, his jaw set in a hard line. "It's why they stay with each other, and only with each other. They're deadly to every other living being in the universe."

"So they can be used as a virus."

"Against their will, yes."

"But how is it being done?" She isn't really asking him, she's just putting the question out there so it cannot be ignored. She can't imagine what it must be like for such peaceful creatures to be harnessed and then unleashed on an entire planet full of people. She knows that the Lydra know they're in captivity; she senses that they feel confined, that all they want is to roam free in peace. They're terrified of hurting people. They know what they're capable of, know what they'll do if they are released from their glass confines.

_You're like us,_ they whisper in her head. _You're confined like us. _Oh, they know. They _know_ how she feels, how the universe is too small for her boundless mind. She hates it.

_Not for much longer,_ she thinks as hard as she can. _None of us. None of us will stay like this._ And then, because it is the most important thing, she says aloud, "I promise."

"Jenny?" Her dad sounds concerned, although whether that concern is for her or the Lydra she isn't sure. "What do you promise?"

She swallows heavily, and refuses to look at him as she says, "That we'll save the Lydra." It's not really a lie. At most it's a lie by omission. She just can't bring herself to admit to him out loud that she needs to save herself as well. Her father would never succumb to such weakness. She can't tell him.

"We'll save them," he says reassuringly, but she gets the feeling he knows she wasn't telling the complete truth. "Keep them company, Jenny," he continues. "Let them know that we're working on it and it will all be over soon. Just a few minutes more, that's all. Keep them calm while I work it out, all right?"

She nods and tries to send comforting thoughts to the Lydra, but she is finding it hard to keep her mind on the task. She is wondering if he gave her the task of damage control because he genuinely thought it might help or because he thought that she'd otherwise be in the way. She wonders if he thinks she's incapable.

_Arrrgh!_ She shakes herself, telling herself to stop wallowing in self-pity. Until she'd run into him, she'd known exactly what she was doing. Her plan had been simple: escape jail, locate the virus, stop the virus. She would have done it if he hadn't come crashing back into her life, filling her head with his pain and alerting her to the fact that the virus is sentient. It would have been so much easier without additional variables cluttering up her plan.

She hates clutter. It reduces her capacity to reason, and reason is something she values very highly. So is logic, and it is logic that she turns to now in her attempt to find a way to stop the Lydra being released.

_It must be something simple,_ she thinks. For the virus to be self-releasing on a timer, the mechanism can't be too complicated or else there would be risk of error. And that certainly wouldn't do for the would-be committers of genocide. They would want their plan to be flawless.

She's almost sure that it is flawless – _almost_. The people who set this plan in motion obviously didn't count on her or her father showing up to disrupt their catastrophic ambitions.

So, something simple. Something obvious. She gazes intently at the Lydra, their blue and gold light growing ever more frantic as the timer counts down, getting closer to zero with every passing moment. They seem to be spiralling upwards in a bid to escape, to be away from here. She follows their progress with her eyes, and that's when she spots it. The thing that this whole plot is hanging on. _So simple_. She smiles in spite of herself. "Dad," she says. "I think I know what to do."

-8-8-8-

The Doctor is at a loss, almost frantic with inaction and his inability to disconnect the timer and stop the virus. _The Lydra,_ he corrects himself. And so when Jenny speaks, saying that she thinks she knows what to do, he cannot stop the grin that breaks out on his face as he turns and sprints back across the room to his daughter. His wonderful, amazing, _brilliant_ daughter. He should have known she'd work it out first. She's brilliant, she is. "What is it?"

"There's a vent. Look." She points upwards to the top of the glass tube, and there is indeed a vent of sorts. More like a fine mesh, it's covered over at the moment, keeping the Lydra in, but he's pretty certain that as soon as the timer hits zero it will open up and send them on their destructive way.

"Jenny, you're a genius!" he exclaims, grabbing her into a hug. It makes his insides judder, having her so close after she has been lost for so long. Something is reawakening inside him.

She pulls away first, looking up at the vent. "They'll be sucked up, right?" she says. "Like an air conditioning system in reverse. They be sucked up there and sent out into the sky."

He doesn't answer because he doesn't know for sure. He thinks that she's right though; it certainly seems to be the most likely option. "We have six minutes," he says instead.

"Right then." Jenny is fully into action mode now, and he is struck by the soldier-like qualities that remain within her, her ability to drop everything until her war is won. He refuses to acknowledge how similar that makes her to himself. "Your lock-picking device wouldn't happen to have any settings to disable vents, would it?"

Ah, now this is something he can deal with. "The sonic screwdriver," he corrects her. "It's called a sonic screwdriver." He holds it up for her to see.

"I need to get one of those," she says. "Or at least something like it. Something to make things easier, like breaking out of jail cells or dismantling bed frames."

"Like dismantling _what?_" He doesn't really want to know why she would have cause to dismantle a bed frame but the words come out of his mouth anyway.

"Sometimes it's necessary," she replies breezily.

Well, he can relate to that. "I'll make you one," he says as he jumps up on the bench next to the container full of Lydra, peering up into the vent to try and work out its mechanism.

"You'll make me a bed frame?" She doesn't sound impressed, and he can't help but smile at her literalism. He wonders what she makes of irony and sarcasm and makes a mental note to try them out on her.

"No," he replies, doing his best to keep the smile out of his voice so she won't be insulted. "I'll make you a sonic screwdriver."

"Oh." She tries to sound casual, but he can feel her surprise and pleasure in his mind. It is then that he realises she still thinks he doesn't really want her, but that his offer to make her a screwdriver has helped her to see that this – him and her – is not just a temporary crossing of paths. "Well, that would be lovely. Thank you!"

He smiles down at her. "You're more than welcome."

He turns his attention back to the vent, all too aware that time is running out and that if they don't do something soon everyone will die. _Ah._ He thinks he has it figured out, and he has just the sonic screwdriver setting that will lock the mechanism and buy them some time to get the Lydra out. He clicks through the screwdriver options until he finds the one he wants and then holds it to the vent, watching the pulse of the light and listening to the whirs that tell him it is working.

"Can you feel it too?" Jenny asks quietly.

He glances down at her to find her watching the Lydra with an expression somewhere between awe and sadness. "Feel what?"

"Them. In your mind. I can feel them in my mind."

"No," he tells her. "I can't." And that is another conversation they will have to have in the near future, about mental barriers and his scarred mind and their shared sense of isolation.

"But you can feel other things."

He wonders what she is getting at and busies himself with adjusting the sonic screwdriver while he takes a moment to think. He almost has the mechanism, and he wills it to hurry up so that he can move onto the next task and avoid her uncomfortable questions for a little while longer.

"Time," she states. "You can feel time, like me. You can tell when something's wrong because you feel it in your head."

He nods. "Yeah," he replies shortly.

She giggles. "Bet you understand it more than I do, though! It's all just a mess to me. All I know is that nothing feels right until I've fixed it."

This saddens the Doctor, the idea that his little girl is so confused about something that is part of her nature. It saddens him that he hasn't been there to help her as her senses developed, help her to understand the ways she can deal with things without becoming overwhelmed by them. "I'm sorry, Jenny," he tells her, and then says no more because it has worked, the vent mechanism is well and truly stuck and there's no chance of it releasing any time soon. "All done!" he says cheerfully, with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Brilliant!" she says, all melancholy gone from her stance like someone has flipped a switch and turned it off. "Now we can save them."

"Yes, we can." He jumps down from the workbench to find himself engulfed in a hug. It lasts no more than two seconds before she's moving away again, saying to the Lydra very matter-of-factly, "Just hold on another minute. We've almost sorted it."

She runs to a bank of cupboards on the other side of the room, surprising him with her speed and energy. He wonders if this is what he looks like to other people, all manic and determined and unstoppable. Jenny is opening the cupboards to reveal stacks of jars and containers. "Come on," she says to him. "Stop dawdling, Father."

_Father._ Ooh, he's not sure what he thinks of that. He prefers 'Dad.' 'Father' makes their relationship seem too formal. He'll have to have a word with her about it later. But for now he goes and joins her with the cupboards, helping her search for a container large enough to hold all of the Lydra so they don't have to split them up. Whatever they find is going to be tight fit, he knows, but it will only be temporary until they can get away from here and find a planet for them to roam free.

"What happened on this planet?" he asks her as they search, realising that he doesn't actually know. He never took the time to find out.

"War," she says simply, and he doesn't like the sound of the word on her lips. "Will this one do?" She drags a large jar from the back of a cupboard, pulling it out to rest on the floor.

He nods, not failing to notice the brevity of her answer to his question. Still, he supposes, 'war' covers all manner of sins. "Yeah, that'll do. Think you can hold it while I release the Lydra into it?"

"I'm not a child!" she tells him indignantly. "I'm more than capable of holding a jar." And then, to prove her point, she picks up the jar and stalks off back to the glass cylinder.

"I didn't say you weren't!" he retorts, following her. He decides that father/daughter domestics will have to wait. There's less than three minutes until the timer reaches zero, and although he's bought them some time by blocking up the vent, he doesn't want to take any chances. "I'm going to heat the glass to make it more malleable," he says. "And then I'm going to make a small hole in it. You'll need to cover the hole with the jar straight away, okay?"

She nods. "Right. I take it that this is another job for the _sonic screwdriver_?" He can practically hear the italicisation in her speech, her awe of the little device all too apparent. Making her one of his own becomes his top priority once they have completed this mission.

"Oh, most definitely," he agrees. He takes the aforementioned screwdriver and focuses its power on as small a portion of the glass as possible. As he concentrates on the task, he can hear Jenny talking to the Lydra, her excitement about the situation evident in her tone of voice. He loves that she loves adventure so much. It bodes well for the future.

Once the glass has heated and begun to warp, he changes the setting on the screwdriver and uses it to make a small hole about the size of a penny. As soon as he moves away, Jenny is covering the hole with the jar so the Lydra can't escape. He can hear her talking to them with her mind, but he doesn't know what she's saying. He could look and find out, of course he could, but he promised her he wouldn't and he meant it. Her mind is private, off-limits to him, and he knows that he's lucky she didn't insist on chucking him out of her head altogether.

The process of transferring the Lydra from one glass container to the other is slow, due to their large number and reluctance to be crammed into an even smaller space, but progress is steady. He just wishes it would speed up a little bit so that they could get out of here.

The muffled sound of a door slamming followed by pounding feet coming from the opposite end of the corridor outside makes him wish that it would speed up even more. "Jenny," he murmurs, "I think we'd better get ready to run."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Thanks for all your comments and support so far!! This is the penultimate chapter, in which Jenny finally meets the TARDIS. Please let me know if you like it (or if you don't)! Enjoy :)

* * *

Her dad rushes off to guard the door as best he can with nothing but a high-tech DIY tool and a disinclination to violence. Jenny stays with the Lydra, willing them with her mind to speed up so that they can make a run for it while there's still time. She clutches the jar full of tiny creatures under one arm, holding its lid in her other hand ready to seal it as soon as the transfer is complete.

She's not worried about the Lydra harming her; she can sense that she has no reason to be. They have enough control over themselves to move around, and hold themselves still if need be. What made them dangerous in the glass cylinder was the threat of their group being ripped apart, drawn upwards through the vent and sent out forcefully, tearing them away from each other and sending them spinning in all different directions. Jenny can certainly understand their need to reside on otherwise uninhabited planets so that they can roam free and not be confined to one place.

And now she knows why they understand her so well. They recognise in her the feeling of being confined, her need to roam through time, her need to not be alone. She feels suddenly exposed.

"Jenny, how's it coming?" her dad calls from the door, sounding a little frantic. They probably have twenty seconds at most before the soldiers from the jail burst in and find them.

"Almost," she replies as the last of the Lydra leave their glass prison and enter into their temporary home. She can feel the tension in them as they work to hold themselves still long enough for her to put the lid on the jar and keep them there. Without the lid, their need to be free would be too strong, and they would be unable to stop themselves fleeing, which would render all Jenny's efforts useless. As it is, she can feel their discomfort in her mind, their hatred at being compressed like this. It's starting to make her head hurt. She ignores it.

She's just finished putting the lid on the jar and is hefting it in her arms so that she can carry it properly when her dad says, "Come _on._"

"I'm _coming_," she snaps, holding the jar securely and then sprinting across the floor to him. "These things have a speed limit, you know."

He doesn't answer, instead wrapping one hand around the door handle before reaching forward to slip a key into her trouser pocket and then gesturing for her to be quiet with the other. She nods. Does he really think she's just going to yell out, alerting the soldiers to where they are? And what's with the key? She finds herself getting angry with him for no reason. "Stay behind me," he says quietly and she thinks to argue with him before deciding against it. Now is not the time. Especially not when some well-timed running appears to be the next item on the agenda. She loves running. Especially when there's a chance she could be caught. Makes it more exciting. "Ready?" he asks.

"Always."

He grins manically at her and then in the same instant opens the door and steps out, turning to face the direction the soldiers are coming from to see where they are (close, but they have enough time to get away if they're fast), his smile never wavering. He waves her behind him with one hand and she takes the hint, darting to the exit door while transferring the Lydra back under her arm so that she can open it. She runs outside, holding the door open for her dad, willing him to hurry up with her mind.

She receives a mental image from him. It's strange, and for a moment she thinks that it's just an idle thought that's accidentally crossed from his mind to hers in the confusion of the moment. But then it comes again, more insistently, and she finds herself running even though she doesn't know where she's going, or why. She hears yelling coming from inside the tunnel she has just escaped from and she wants to go back to make sure her father is okay, but something compels her to keep on running and so she does.

Jenny runs up a rocky incline near the door she exited from until she comes to a wire fence. A wire fence with a hole in it. She ducks through the hole, her t-shirt catching on a rough edge as she goes. It tears the fabric and nicks her skin. She ignores the pain and instead focuses on the ripped shirt. She likes this t-shirt. She'll have to repair it, but that will mean having to learn how to repair it, something she thinks will probably be boring (she can't abide boredom), and suddenly she realises that the landscape here is very different to the landscape she left on the other side of the fence.

There's grass under her feet instead of rock and dirt and the air is cleaner, purer. Almost instantly her lungs feel lighter. She doesn't understand it. _We bring flora,_ she hears the Lydra whisper to her. _We make it grow._ Well, Jenny supposes as she slows her pace slightly to take in the scene, things affect things in different ways. Apparently the Lydra are good for flora even though they're no good for fauna. _Yes,_ they tell her. _That's it._

And then she comes up against an obstacle. A box. A big blue box with doors and windows. She doesn't know what it is, but she knows that it's right. This is where her dad wanted her to go, she can feel it. And suddenly it hits her. This must be his TARDIS, the ship he spoke of. "Wow," she breathes. She stares at it for a long moment until she feels him nudge against her mind once more, and an image of him placing the key in her pocket appears in front of her eyes. Juggling the jar of aliens, she manages to extract the key and unlock the door, part of her wondering how her dad manages in such a small ship. Maybe she can get him to her adapt her spaceship into a time machine; after all, it's bigger, and it would give them more space.

The door swings open. She steps inside, and suddenly Jenny understands how her dad manages in the TARDIS. It's _huge!_ She makes a note to ask him about the physics of it later (she loves physics and knowing how things work, will happily spend hours learning the intricacies of things until she has the full story). "Wow," she says again as the door shuts behind her. "Transdimensional."

It's strange, the feeling this ship invokes within her. The Lydra, the planet, and even her dad are all pushed to the back of her mind as she takes in her surroundings. She walks up a ramp, pausing a moment at the top to place the jar of Lydra on the floor out of the way before she walks a full circle around the central console, trailing her fingers over the controls as she goes.

She hears the ship hum in response to her touch, the lights pulsing slightly. She giggles with the excitement of it all. "Hello," she says to the ship (she always talks to her spaceship, usually to give the illusion of having another person there with her).

To her surprise, she feels a brush in her mind in response. She knows it's coming from the ship; this presence feels different to anything she has experienced so far. It's not the hesitant dance of the Lydra or the slightly guilty weight of her dad, but something else, something more. Something ancient and female and alien, and unlike any other.

"I'm Jenny," she says. And then, because she has learnt that it's polite to ask, "What's your name?"

She feels a sense of amusement within her and the word 'TARDIS' appears in her mind. She grins. "The Doctor's my dad," she continues, feeling as though she needs to justify her presence here. In reply she is given the feeling that the TARDIS already knew this piece of information. "It's lovely to meet you. He told me about you. I…" She trails off, a huge amount of pressure suddenly building within her brain, spreading out from the centre.

It's not the same as before, when the pain in her head had made her want to explode, but it's more intense, and threatens to overwhelm her. She can feel them all inside her – the Lydra, the TARDIS, her dad – and it's too much. She can't separate the three strands well enough for them to remain distinct or coherent any longer. They're all melding together into a big cacophony, a jarring dissonance screeching through her head. She feels light-headed. She feels concern from the TARDIS and thinks that she hears the door open as her legs fail her and she tumbles to the floor.

Her vision blurs and darkens. She just wants to sleep. She's so tired and she can't focus and _oh,_ it hurts and it would be so sweet to just give in to the darkness and let it take her for a while. She lets her eyes close. The last thing she is aware of is someone saying, "Jenny. Jenny!"

She lets unconsciousness overtake her.

-8-8-8-

The Doctor runs full pelt up the hill, more than aware that he is being chased by several angry men wielding some rather angry-looking truncheons. He feels a sense of relief that Jenny will by now be safe in the TARDIS. He can already picture her expression of awe at the marvellous ship and the image spurs him on, through the fence and back into the lush landscape he arrived into not so very long ago.

It's strange to think that it's been less than an hour since he arrived here with the intention of helping a creature in distress and found not only what he was looking for, but also prevented a genocide and found the daughter he thought was dead. It's been an eventful hour, and he is very grateful when the TARDIS comes into view.

He reaches his ship within seconds, and he has pushed through the door and is in the process of slamming it shut when he hears the soldiers chasing him yelling in frustration. _Serves them right,_ he thinks. He can feel the timelines snapping back into place now that they have prevented the release of the virus and the population of the planet are no longer destined to die. He decides that he'll have to teach Jenny the difference between timelines in a state of flux and those that are fixed, just to make sure she never interferes where she's not supposed to.

He shrugs off his coat after the door has shut, and it is then that he becomes aware that something is wrong. He can see the jar of Lydra on the floor by the railing, but Jenny isn't in the console room. The hum of the TARDIS is concerned, willing him to hurry. "Jenny," he says as he rounds the console. He sees her. "Jenny!"

He rushes to where she is lying on the floor, her cheek pressed to the grate and her brow furrowed with pain. _Oh no._ He should have expected this, expected that the presence of the TARDIS in her head would be too much for her to handle along with him and the Lydra. He should have made her let him put a temporary block in her mind until the situation was resolved and he could teach her how to deal with multiple telepaths in her head. _Stupid._ He should have known.

Carefully, oh-so-carefully, he picks up his unconscious daughter, cradling her gently in his arms as he carries her to the medical bay to reverse whatever damage has been done to her. Releasing the Lydra will have to wait: this is far more important.

-8-8-8-

Jenny wakes to the sound of the TARDIS machinery and the sight of stark white walls and ceiling. There is the smell of cleanliness and disinfectant in the air. Her dad is sitting by the side of the bed she is lying on, his head in his hands. "You have your own private hospital?" she murmurs.

His head snaps up at the sound of her voice. "You're awake," he says.

"Of course I'm awake," she tells him in all seriousness. "I can't talk in my sleep, can I?"

"I suppose not," he concedes.

"Bet you do though, Mr Motor Mouth."

He laughs, but it comes across as slightly strained. He takes one of her hands in his and places his other hand on her forehead. "How are you feeling?" he asks.

She thinks about it. She's definitely feeling better now; the pain in her head has gone and she doesn't feel dizzy anymore. That's definitely a good thing. But now the loneliness is back. Everything that was in her head has now gone; she is once again alone with her thoughts. It can only be because of something her father has done. Doesn't he know she hates the empty spaces in her head? "My head has stopped hurting," she tells him, but nothing else. If she tells him how the renewed emptiness aches then he'll think she's weak. After all, he's survived on his own for longer than she's been alive. She has no right to complain, especially when it is all she has ever known. He probably thinks that she knows no different.

"That's good," he replies.

She brushes his hand from her head so that she can sit up. He's looking at her intently, concern written all over his face but she finds she can't bring herself to meet his gaze to reassure him. "What did you do?" she asks instead.

"I set up a block in your mind," he tells her, at least having the good grace to sound apologetic. "Just until we've taken the Lydra somewhere else. Then there'll be less interference in your mind and I'll remove the block. I'll teach you how to cope with me and the TARDIS."

She ignores the fact that he's just as good as welcomed her into his life and says instead, "You went into my head. You said you wouldn't."

"I know, Jenny." His grip on her hand tightens as though he is afraid she is going to pull away from him because of what he has done. "I'm sorry. I know I said I wouldn't but I had to. It was too much for you to handle. And I didn't look at anything - I just pushed the TARDIS and the Lydra out of your head and set up the mental blocks as I left. I didn't see anything you wouldn't want me to, I promise."

She nods, accepting his explanation. It's not like she can do anything to change it now. "What happens now?" she asks.

"Now we take the Lydra somewhere they can be safe." She senses that he wants to say more but is holding himself back. He smiles instead. "Your first trip in the TARDIS!"

She has to admit that it's a pretty exciting prospect, even though there are lots of things she'd like to talk to him about before she decides properly what to do now he is back in her life. "Can we travel in time?" she asks hopefully.

His face relaxes into a huge, beaming smile at her question. "Of course we can. I know just the place we can go, as well. The Lydra will love it."

"Brilliant!"

-8-8-8-

The Doctor feels a strange sense of satisfaction standing at the TARDIS console, Jenny waiting eagerly by his side. Ever since he told her that they could travel in time in order to re-home the Lydra, she has stuck to him like glue. It occurs to him that she must have been craving it, perhaps without even realising, craving to move through time in the way he does every day almost without thought. "Right!" he exclaims. "We're off to the primary moon of Cyrus Minor! History says that it stays uninhabited throughout its entire lifetime due to deadly toxins floating through the air, and who am I to argue with history, eh?"

"The Lydra are the toxins?"

Oh, she's quick. She's brilliant, Jenny is. "Exactly," he praises her. "Or they will be, as soon as we take them there, right back when the moon began to bloom."

"Maybe a bit before that," she suggests and he gets the distinct impression that she knows something he doesn't. "They were responsible for all that vegetation on the hill even though the rest of the planet is in ruins. They create the flora."

"How do you know that?" If she's going to turn out to be cleverer than he is, he wants to know how she does it. Maybe she could give him some tips.

"They told me," she says as though it's perfectly obvious.

Well, that makes sense. "Of course. You ready to go?"

She hesitates a moment, and he gets the feeling that she wants to tell him something, but she stops herself and instead grins brightly at him. "Yes, please!"

That's all it takes. He's bounding around the console, flipping switches and pulling levers and, if he's entirely honest, showing off a little bit. He stops only when he sees Jenny watching him with her hands on her hips and looking distinctly unimpressed with his extravagant attempt to impress her. "What?"

"I want to help," she says simply.

"Oh." He has to admit, he wasn't really expecting that. But then, he realises, he can't just expect her to sit back and let him be in charge all the time. Like she worked so hard to make him understand on Messaline, she's her own person. She has a mind and independent thought, and pretty bloody brilliant independent thought it is at that. And if anyone has a right to help him fly the TARDIS, it's her. "Of course," he says. He guides her to the console and then places her hands on the controls. "Hold that one down," he says, pointing to the lever he means. "Then when I flick that switch over there, let go of the lever and press that button, all right?"

She nods. "Got it."

"Okay." He has to admit to himself that he's a little nervous about this. It's not every day he has a co-pilot.

Jenny pulls on the lever he pointed out to her, practically humming with excited energy. Her enthusiasm is infectious and he finds himself grinning as he reaches out and flicks the switch next to his right hand. Jenny immediately lets go of the lever and presses the button. Then he pulls the dematerialisation lever, and they're off.

Show time.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **This is chapter 6 of 6, and I'd like to say a big THANK YOU (!) to all the lovely people who have commented, read, and/or favourited this fic. It's great to know that you guys are enjoying it. Thanks for all the support! Enjoy the last chapter :)

* * *

She thinks to be disappointed by the lack of spectacle that comes with travelling in time. Oh, she knows that what they have just done is marvellous. They disappeared from one time and place and reappeared in another without actually physically travelling between the two. Brilliant! She'd just expected to feel _more_, somehow. She thought that it would change her, when in reality all she experienced was a sense of satisfaction before being thrown unceremoniously to the floor by her dad's bad driving.

It had taken only moments to release the Lydra, sending them off to their new home. She had wanted to stay a while, see a new world being made as the creatures adapted the environment to their needs. She wanted to watch them creating flora, but she knew that they couldn't hang around.

And so they left, her and her dad, going back to the TARDIS. And now she sits on the seat next to the console while he recalibrates something (or pretends to). They haven't spoken in a while. Jenny isn't entirely sure what to say, if anything at all. She still feels a bit hesitant, not completely convinced that her dad really wants her with him, and she wonders if she should ask him to take her back to her spaceship. She thinks it might be a good test: if he refuses or looks at her like she's mad or if he looks sad at the thought of her leaving, then she'll know that it's all right to stay. If he looks relieved or indifferent or agrees in a way that tells her he thinks it's about bloody time she left, then she'll go. She'll go and travel on through space. She's been doing very nicely at it until now, after all. She's not entirely sure how long she's been alive in accordance with any of the well-known universal calendars, but since she was born she has saved fourteen civilisations from certain death and visited a total of forty-one planets (some she has been to more than once, like the lovely little world where she met a very nice man who danced with her all night and bought her drinks without her even having to ask). It's not a bad achievement, considering. She'll be able to manage on her own again, even if it is a bit lonely, especially now she knows what it's like to have proper company. Still, maybe she could go and find that man again, ask him to come with her. That might be fun. He was nice (and handsome).

She realises that she has been quietly rambling away in her head only when her dad clears his throat noisily, and she looks up to find him leaning against the console, watching her. "Hello," she says.

"Hi."

There is a slightly awkward pause. "So, everything's all right now?" she asks just to check. "The Lydra are fine and so is that planet?"

"Yes and yes," he answers. "Everything is fine." He looks down at the floor. "Can I…? I mean, maybe I should…"

"What?"

"Take the mental block out of your mind," he says. "There's no need for it now."

"Okay," she says immediately. Part of her thinks that she should want to keep the block there, just in case – after all, the thought of anyone being in her head (even her dad) is a bit uncomfortable. But things feel limited with it there, and she has to admit that it was nice to have the comforting presence of him with her even when she couldn't see him. Maybe if they're going to have to separate she could use their mental link to contact him if she ever needs help. Plus she'd quite like to be able to talk to the TARDIS. She thinks that they could be friends.

"Right," he says, moving to stand in front of her. He smiles at her reassuringly and then lifts his hands to her face, positioning his fingers on her temples. "I'll have to teach you how to do this," he tells her. "Just in case you ever need to know."

She's not entirely sure what he's doing or why she'd ever need to do it, but she doesn't say anything and focuses instead on the slight pressure as he reaches out with his own mind to brush against hers. She feels something giving way, and it makes her gasp. Then the pressure dissipates, and she knows that he has removed the mental block. She can feel a soothing hum seep in towards the back of her mind that she instantly associates with the TARDIS, as well as a hesitant presence skirting around the edges, as though asking permission to be there.

"Is that you?" she asks her dad.

_Yes,_ he replies, and it is a moment before she realises that he has not spoken out loud. And then he says, "Is it all right?"

She thinks about it, trusting that he won't look at her thoughts when he said he wouldn't. She comes to the conclusion that it is all right, because it doesn't hurt in the way it did earlier and he feels familiar, and he fits into the big empty space in her mind that she has long felt needs to somehow be filled (although there's still something of a gap there that she isn't sure will ever be full). She concentrates and tells him with her mind, _It's okay._

Jenny finds herself caught up in a hug then, and she knows without words that her dad is proud of her for what she has just done, communicating without speech. He laughs and she finds herself giggling along with him, although she is failing to see how the situation is funny. It's just a natural reaction. She loves to laugh.

"Where do you want to go?" he asks her once they have calmed a bit and he has moved to sit next to her on the seat.

"I… don't know," she replies. "It depends."

"Depends on what?"

She's just going to have to say it. "On whether I can come with you or not."

Her dad's face crumples into an unreadable expression and she can feel just a hint of something in her mind, obviously an emotion she has not yet experienced because she doesn't know what it is. "Oh, Jenny," he says, his tone of voice matching the way he feels. "Of course you can come. I'd love you to come." He tenses slightly as though bracing himself for hurt. "If you want."

"I want to," she says, unable to stop the huge grin that breaks out on her face. "If you'll have me."

"Oh yes," he says, his grin matching her own.

It occurs to her that they must look pretty silly, sitting here grinning at each other like lunatics (she's never understood that expression – most of the true lunatics she's met have actually been quite sad souls), but she doesn't care. "Will you teach me how to fly the TARDIS?"

"Of course I will."

"And you'll tell me about the Time Lords?"

"Definitely." His smile drops a bit, and she senses that there is a sense of underlying sadness surrounding the topic of their people, but she can wait a while to find out the exact reasons why.

"And we can go to our planet?"

The smile disappears completely and sadness flows from his mind to hers for all the time it takes for him to catch himself and draw the feeling back inside him. "No," he says. "It's gone. Gallifrey is gone."

"Gallifrey," she says, turning the word over in her mouth. He doesn't say anything else, which she takes to mean he doesn't want to talk about it at the moment. "It died in the war you told me about." Somehow she knows that this is right, that the war he mentioned on Messaline is what killed their home. "I'm sorry."

He shakes his head. "It's fine."

She knows he's lying. "No, it's not."

Her dad sighs and smiles a self-deprecating smile. "No, you're right. It's not."

"Sorry," she says again and then takes his hand with hers, because she knows that it's meant to be a comforting gesture in stressful situations.

"I'm sorry too, Jenny," he tells her in all sincerity, looking her straight in the eye. "I'm sorry you've been alone. If I'd known you were alive, if I'd had even the slightest inkling…"

"It's not your fault. I ran away from Messaline. I just… I couldn't resist! There's just so much to see and I couldn't wait. I just ran."

"I can sympathise with that." He is obviously telling the truth.

"It wasn't enough, though. I had the whole universe to explore, but I still felt like I needed more, like I needed _time_ as well. I need to run in time."

He smiles softly and lifts his free hand to stroke her hair, something that she'd only ever do to children. But then, she supposes, she is his child even if she never actually had a child's body. And as far as her mind is concerned, she's still very much a child compared to him. "You can now," he tells her.

She nods. "With you." She knows that it will be hard, at least for a while. Even if he's certain about taking her with him (and she's pretty sure he is), there are still going to be things that are awkward for them, especially when it comes to things she needs to know to be able to understand herself and how she relates to the universe they live in. She senses there are things that will be hard for her dad to talk about, and things that it will take her time to grasp. She knows that she can never replace what he has lost, but she hopes that with time she'll be able to carve out a distinct place for herself in this life, here with him on the TARDIS. Plus, she tells herself, if things ever get too awkward then they can always go and find a battle to throw themselves into, run for their lives to let off some steam. She really does love the running, and she knows he does too, so at least they'll always have some common ground.

"With me," her dad says, echoing her sentiment as he jumps up from the seat and bounds to the other side of the console. "Any time, any place. We have the whole of time and space to choose from. We can go anywhere." He grins at her and she grins back.

"New worlds," she says, moving to join him at the console.

"Anywhere you like," he says, looking at her fondly. "You choose."


End file.
